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Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoke.com.

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast.

It feels like a whole other lifetime ago, but my first book was about media manipulation, how good people and, but mostly bad people are able to exploit loopholes and patterns in the media to get messages across.

This could be done if you're promoting a yoga studio or charitable cause, but it can also be done if you're a bad actor. If you're a foreign entity trying to influence an election in a country, if you're trying to spread misinformation or a conspiracy theory through social media, or if you're a demagog or worse, you can use the same thing.

I was fascinated by this documentary that actually the Atlantic just put out called White Noise, which is basically a three or four-year look inside the White Nationalist Movement and the extreme, extreme right wing, people like Richard Spencer and Lauren Southern and Mike Cernovich.

And what's weird is I was fascinated with the documentary. I haven't been to know some of the characters in the documentary because, as it happens, I'd found out over the years that they'd read my book.

The purpose of Trust Me Online was to sort of expose how these things operate. So we're not at the mercy of what I think are downright bad actors, people who are bad for the world, people who are emphatically embodying ideas that are against what the Stokes talk about. But, in any case, here we are.

And so I reached out to the director of the documentary, Daniel Lombroso, and I said, hey, do you want to come on the podcast and talk about it?

Because we've talked about this idea before of radicalization, that the Stokes are not one to be radicalized.

For the Stokes is about keeping an even keel, it's about keeping an objective view, it's emphatically about not falling prey to the impulses or the ideas of the mob, where the tyrant as the Stokes would have called them.

And so I wanted to talk about those forces, which are operating on people, people you love and care about right now, people who are then, and this is something I talk a lot about in this book, this idea of trading up the chain, how things can start on social media or Wikipedia or start in a YouTube video and worm its way up.

And soon enough, be a real talking point for global media outlets, even world leaders. And that's one of the really fascinating things you see in this documentary is how these figures is almost cartoonish figures that you'd think no one could be taking seriously.

In fact, are reaching millions of people and they're reaching people who in turn reach millions of more people, it's almost like the ideas are getting laundered. And so I think this is a fascinating episode. Daniel is actually, as you'll hear, it was a little nervous to talk to me, he wondered sort of what my intentions were, which I thought was funny, but I totally understand it.

And I think the interview turned out great can't wait for you to hear it. And look, if you know someone who's been sucked down one of these rabbit holes, if you happen to be someone who's, you know, explored some of these rabbit holes yourself, I think this is a great conversation. I think the documentary is well worth reading. I streamed it on YouTube and I really enjoyed it.

So check it out white noise inside the racist right Daniel and Broso, he's a great filmmaker and journalist. He was for many years, he was a staff producer at the Atlantic, it's an all sorts of great work. This is his first feature. And it is the first feature ever made by the Atlantic and you absolutely should check it out.

So I thought we should start with you, you were a little nervous to chat with me, maybe we should, maybe we should lay that out. It was because you'd heard of my work, but probably not the stoicism work I'm guessing.

Yeah, I think that's true. You know, I'm happy to talk to anyone about the film. It was four years of my life. And I gave everything to studying and examining the rise of extremism in this country.

I think I had some pause knowing that you appeared in Mike's son of bitches film hoaxed your an expert interview in the film. And at first, I might have made me think that maybe you were, you know, more sympathetic to those views that I might originally have thought.

But then I looked you up and saw that, you know, you've done a lot of really great work. I was actually just listening to your interview with Mono Genobli, who I'm a big fan of. And that was awesome. So I'm happy to be here.

It's a weird thing because I wrote, trust me, I'm lying in Tending, I wrote it in 2011, the idea being like, hey, here's how these sort of thing, here's how like the logic of the internet sort of information ecosystem is working.

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